Steve Deane: Whatever happens - it's not cheating if the ref doesn't see

Kieran Foran of the Kiwis is tackled by Luke Lewis of the Kangaroos. Photo / Getty Images

A tree-falls-in-the-woods time. As in, if a tackler has his hands all over the ball and there is only one English referee there and he doesn't spot it, is it really cheating? Actually, that is not some grand philosophical question at all. The answer is quite bleeding obviously "no".

It's hard to see why it took the Kiwis three halves of football under English whistler Phil Bentham to figure that out. It took the Kangaroos all of five minutes.

After three horribly uneven halves between the Kiwis and Roos, something approaching parity was finally achieved in the second half at Warrington. The main reason was glaringly obvious - the Kiwis finally decided to use the significant leeway allowed by Bentham in the wrestle and even in attempted play-the-balls.

In the NRL, hands hovering even near the ball in the ruck are treated like a crusty old boss's arm around the young secretary. Being close to out of bounds is close enough. Rulings against the practice are swift and condemnatory. Workplace practices have moved on, after all. But compared to the ultra-fast two-referee world of the NRL, Bentham's game-management is straight out of the dark ages.

That said, he's not refereeing incorrectly, he's just doing it differently.

In fact, in his own way, Bentham has been quite impressive. Certainly he has been even-handed. After years of Aussies controlling transtasman tests, it's good to see the game sticking hard to the concept of neutral refs.

But with differing nationalities and hemispheres come differing interpretations. It's up to players and coaches to adapt, something Stephen Kearney admitted after the 26-12 defeat in Warrington.

"It was awfully slow in places and the Australians did better than us," he said. "We got an indication beforehand of what was and wasn't allowed but we're still confused. We tried to match them in the second half and managed to reduce those opportunities teams have to stun an opposition by getting through it quickly.

"You've got to do what you can get away with. It's a good gauge for next time if we're in that position with the same ref."

Amen to that, although it would have been preferable if the 42-6 flogging his side received in Newcastle a fortnight earlier with Bentham in charge had served the same purpose.

Slow to learn maybe, but there were enough encouraging aspects of the Kiwis' performance to suggest the familiar campaign pattern of a slow start followed by a grandstand finish might just be on the cards again. Rookies Gerard Beale, Kalifa Faifai Loa and Alex Glenn earned a measure of redemption with vastly improved efforts in their second tests, while prop Ben Matulino was the best player on the field in either side.

Matulino's development over the last two seasons has been quite staggering. With vice captain Adam Blair clear to return, the Kiwis will go up another notch. England's comprehensive dismantling of Wales on Saturday suggests they will need to do so simply to make the final. With a tune up match against the Welsh in London to precede the now must-win game against the English in Hull, the schedule has become the Kiwis' friend. Let's hope they make more use of it than they did the ample early warnings about Bentham's style.

Cannonball

Put me down in the "that wasn't a cannonball tackle" camp over Issac Luke's effort on David Shillington. Yesterday's "Cannonball Kid" headline in a Sunday newspaper was great tabloid fodder, but it was also entirely disproportionate to the alleged offence. Yes, Luke dived in at Shillington's legs, but he did so with his arms as well as his shoulders and was attempting to make a genuine tackle. As Kearney pointed out "the one against Australia in Australia looked far worse". On that occasion in Newcastle, Luke drove at Sam Thaiday's legs with just his head and shoulder. That tackle was unquestionably a cannonball - a practice the NRL is attempting to stomp out. However the failure to act over that tackle made it all but impossible to cite Luke over Saturday's much tamer effort.

Luke has been vilified, but it's hard not to feel sorry for him. Players are taught from day one to chop opponents down around the legs. Or at least they used to be. These days players are drilled at going high and keeping opponents on their feet. It's a tactic refined by the Melbourne Storm to slow down the play-the-ball. Ball carriers are held on their feet for several seconds before being put to ground, often by a third tackler going low. If the NRL wants to stamp out the cannonball, then it needs to look at the premeditated wrestle that precedes it. If Shillington had sustained a serious injury in that tackle, it would have had as much to do with the two players who grappled him high and then twisted him as it did with Luke diving in at his legs.